


And I was thrashing on the line

by Emjen_Enla



Series: That's what we do. We never stop fighting. [12]
Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Gangs, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kaz has a weighted blanket, Ketterdam's myriad political and social issues, Murder, Post-Book 2: Crooked Kingdom, Smoking, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23208412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: Of all the people in Ketterdam, Roeder was probably the last one who would be expected to end up running with one of the Barrel’s most infamous gangs. Or Roeder's fic.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker & Roeder, Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa, Roeder/Original Character, mentions of
Series: That's what we do. We never stop fighting. [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1364587
Comments: 18
Kudos: 67





	And I was thrashing on the line

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to what is, as far as I know, the only fic about Roeder on the internet. I hope you all enjoy. :)
> 
> (Also, to think that when I started this fic I thought it was going to be short.)
> 
> Title from "Caught" by Florence and the Machine.
> 
> Warnings: Smoking, discussion of suicide. Please let me know if I didn't tag something that I should have.

Of all the people in Ketterdam, Roeder was probably the last one who would be expected to end up running with one of the Barrel’s most infamous gangs.

Roeder’s father had hated the gangs. He’d been the sort of man who spent all the limited time he hadn’t spent breaking his back in factories which poured money into merch pockets ranting about how the gangs were what was wrong with Ketterdam. All the myriad social and political issues the city had were the fault of the gangs. According to him, if the members of the gangs would just give up their crimes and become upright citizens practicing upright commerce, Ketterdam would be a better place. The man never wavered from that view not even while he was dying from lung cancer because the merch who owed the factory he worked at had decided protecting his employees from the harmful chemicals used in the manufacturing process was a waste of money.

Roeder had also once held those views, but unlike his father he changed. It was hard to tell exactly when that change had started, but when Roeder told the story he generally said it was when his girlfriend got pregnant. He and Franka were married shortly after, and while they were happy money was tight. By the time their daughter was two and Franka was pregnant again it was starting to look like they were going to starve to death.

Everything changed one night when Roeder was leaving work at the factory he worked at—not the same one as his father did but with no better management. There was no money for food and neither he nor Franka got paid until the end of the week. Roeder was shuffling slowly home and wondering how they were going to explain to their two-year-old that there wasn’t going to be food until Saturday when a dark-clothed figure leaning against a wall held out a cane to block his path.

“You want a cigarette?” the person asked in a raspy voice.

Roeder had smoked for years, but there hadn’t been money for cigarettes in weeks. He wanted one desperately. “Please,” he said.

The person drew out a thin package of cigarettes which looked brand new and handed one over. He drew a lighter out of another pocket and lit Roeder up. Roeder inhaled and sighed in relief. “Thank you,” he breathed.

“Don’t mention it,” The person said. Given the cane and the rasp, Roeder had assumed the person was an old man, but now that he looked closer he saw it was actually a young one, perhaps sixteen. “You work in that factory?” the kid asked casually.

“Yeah,” Roeder said, trying not to seem to focused on the cigarette. “You looking for a job?”

The kid snorted. “No,” he said. “Do you know where the supervisor’s office is?”

“Yes,” Roeder said. “Everyone does. Man likes to lord over us from there.” He cut himself off as panic surged through him. The workers of a different factory had gone on strike a few months before and now saying anything even a little revolutionary could get you fired at Roeder’s factory. His family would not survive him getting fired. They were barely surviving on his and Franka’s combined incomes.

“Would you be willing to do something for me?” the kid asked. “I’d pay you.” He flashed Roeder a wad of pale purple _kruge_ , it was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like more than Roeder’s paycheck.

The _kruge_ was what tipped Roeder off to what was actually going on. He looked at the kid more closely and noticed the things he’d missed at first: the long, well-maintained wool coat and suit that were cut the way the merchers wore them, the severe haircut with the shaved sides, the black gloves, the crow’s head on the top of the cane. “You’re Kaz Brekker,” he breathed. Only the ingrained knowledge of how precious this one cigarette was kept him from dropping it.

Brekker’s lips twitched in what might have been a nasty smile. “You’re smarter than you look, then.”

“I’m a good man,” Roeder said, hurriedly. He had been raised on stories of the gangs by his father, but he’d never had to actually interact with someone who was more than a simple bruiser before.

"Really?” Brekker asked. “So, you don’t want the _kruge_ then?”

Roeder knew that he should go on his way with the utmost haste. Nothing good could come of associating with Kaz Brekker. He’d heard the stories; everyone had. Still, he couldn’t stop looking at the money.

“I don’t want much from you,” Brekker said, turning the bills over and over in his fingers. He knew they had Roeder’s attention. “I just want you to slide a little something under your esteemed supervisor’s door. It will take you five minutes and then you can have all this.”

“How do I know you’re not setting me up?” Roeder asked. “That’s what you lot do, isn’t it?”

“Please,” Brekker snorted and rolled his eyes. “I have much better things to do with my time than set up random factory workers. I need this letter delivered. That’s it.” He waited a moment to let Roeder think, then went on, “If you have too many morals, I’ll find someone else with less compunctions and give them the money. It makes no difference to me.”

Roeder looked at the _kruge_ and then up at the boy who was offering them. His father had always told him and his siblings that one day there would come a time when the gangs would come for them and when that happened they must be strong enough to hold on to their faith in Ghezen and take the right path. Roeder knew what he was supposed to say in this situation, he knew what the right thing to do was, but there was no money and no food. If he said no the way a good man was supposed to he would go home and trying to explain to his two-year-old that he knew she was hungry but that there was nothing to be done.

He looked over his shoulder at the factory rising out of the darkness behind him. The window to the supervisor’s office was dark. The man had already left to go home and gorge himself on fine food in the company of his rich wife and rich children and rich friends. He didn’t care that Roeder’s daughter was going to go hungry tonight.

It would be easy, really. The supervisor for this shift preferred to sit in his office at the other end of the hallway and nap for most of the night, and all the foremen would be on the factory floor. Roeder could just slip in, climb the stairs, slip the note under the office door and slip back out. It really would only take five minutes.

Staring up at that darkened window Roeder weighed his status as a good man against his daughter’s hungry tears and found there was no contest at all.

“I’ll do it,” he said, turning back to Brekker. “Where’s the letter?”

Brekker smiled. It was not a particularly nice smile. “I thought you might feel that way.” He made the _kruge_ vanish back into his coat. It wasn’t until much later that Roeder had the sense to know that he should have demanded half of it upfront; he was lucky Brekker hadn’t been planning to cheat him. “Here’s the letter.”

Roeder took it. The envelope was on nice paper—not expensive, per se, but far above anything Roeder’s family had ever been able to afford—with the supervisor’s name written on the front in a spidery hand. It was closed with black wax and a stamp of a crow drinking from a wine goblet. Roeder clutched it as carefully as he had his daughter when she had been placed newborn and squalling into his arms, and headed back towards the building.

It really was easy. He let himself in through the side door, ducked behind a cabinet when a foreman came to see if someone had come sneaking in late, and then when the coast was clear, darted up the steps and slid the letter under the supervisor’s door. Then he ran as hard and quietly as he could back out into the night.

Brekker was still waiting where Roeder had left him, and he handed the _kruge_ over without prompting. Roeder held it tight, already planning on what to buy for supper and how to explain to Franka where he’d gotten the money from. Brekker pushed himself off the wall and leaned on his cane. He walked a few steps, then paused and looked back. “Also, if your supervisor starts shaking things up trying to figure out who delivered the letter, don’t do anything. If someone saw you, you’ll know soon enough. If no one did, they have no way of knowing it was you, so just keep your head down and it will blow over. Understand?”

“I understand,” Roeder shuddered, suddenly reminded that he had just done something that could get him arrested.

“I just told you not to worry about it,” Brekker said. “It will be fine and I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon, Roeder.” He tipped his hat to Roeder and melted into the darkness.

It wasn’t until Brekker was long gone that Roeder thought to wonder how the gang lieutenant had known his name. It wasn’t until months later that he realized Brekker didn’t smoke, so he must have gone out and bought a pack of cigarettes specifically so he could offer one to Roeder that night.

~~~~

As Brekker had predicted, he and Roeder did indeed see each other again. In fact, the next week Brekker was back, waiting just where Roeder had last seen him with more _kruge_ and another letter. There was less waffling involved this time. The stress of hoping he hadn’t been caught had not been fun, but now that he had done it once, Roeder found that he had fewer moral qualms this time around. He took the letter, snuck back into the factory, slid the letter under the door, snuck back out and collected his payment. That was it.

This went on for a couple weeks, and gradually Brekker began showing up more and more frequently. At first Roeder was afraid this would mean a cut in the payment, the wads of _kruge_ he received for delivering each letter remained the same. By this point, Roeder had gotten the hang of his task, and it had become easy and kind of fun. He enjoyed sneaking into the factory under the supervisors and foremen’s noses. Knowing that these people who had always held him in their power could not catch him was an amazing feeling.

Obviously, the supervisor Roeder was harassing was not enjoying it as much as Roeder was. Roeder didn’t know what was in the letters—he had a feeling that Brekker would find out if he peaked and he knew nothing good would come of that—but he did know that they whipped the supervisor into a frenzy of terror. The man blew through the factory like a storm, demanding that something be done about the letters, that whoever was delivering them be caught and punished. Roeder kept his head down and his mouth shut, just as Brekker had instructed, and lo and behold, he was safe. Even when the foremen interviewed everyone who worked in the factory, trying to get someone to confess, Roeder just shook his head and looked confused and he was safe. The foremen were more focused on the workers with previous records of disruptive behavior anyway.

Then one night, Roeder met Brekker in their usual place, took the letter and hurried back to the factory. He was in a rush. If he went fast there might still be time to buy a goose before the butcher went to bed. He felt terrible for lying to Franka about where the sudden influx of money was coming from and she was getting suspicious, and he hoped that would smooth things over with her.

His mind was already on how good goose was when he reached the door to the stairs. It was closed which was a little unusual, but he didn’t think anything of it until he put his hand on the knob and tried to turn it.

It was locked.

The stumbling block was so unexpected after weeks of no trouble at all, at for a second all he did was stare at the door and twist the knob back and forth. It was definitely locked. He was dumbfounded.

Then common sense took over. This could be a trap. Foremen might be lying in wait to capture whoever tried to go upstairs tonight. He needed to escape before he was captured and went to prison as a gang member.

He turned and ran for his life. He made it out of the factor without incident and crouched behind some boxes in the alley to calm down. He knew that the only thing he could do now was go back to Brekker, hand over the letter and explain what had happened. However, once he did that this little arrangement would be over. There would be no more errands and little wads of _kruge_. There was a little money saved now, but not much. Within months his family would be right back where they’d been when all this had started.

He would not stand for it, Roeder decided. This illegal arrangement was the best thing that had happened to his family in years. If he let this source of income slip through his fingers, nothing like it would ever come again. He had to deliver the letter.

Purely by accident, the alley he had chosen to hide in had a view of the supervisor’s office window. As he stared up at it contemplating what to do, Roeder noticed that, incredibly, like a gift from Ghezen himself, the window was left open a crack.

Roeder leaped to his feet, excitement rushing through his body. When he’d been younger, he’d had a reputation as that kid would climb anything if dared. He’d hurt himself pretty badly falling a few times, but that had never stopped him from climbing, only the factories had managed to do that. Now, looking at the window high above, Roeder noticed the drainpipe running up the roof and knew how he was going to deliver the letter.

It was a nerve-wracking experience. For one, it took longer than climbing the stairs inside had, so there was more of a chance that someone would walk by and see. He was also much more exposed, though thankfully the dark helped with some of that. There was also the worry of the drainpipe coming detached under his weight and sending him crashing to the ground to pain and discovery. He was an adult and very out of practice, so that was definitely a possibility.

Thankfully, he wasn’t as rusty as he’d feared and the drainpipe was sturdier than it looked. He made it to the window, with only a few close calls. Then was the truly complicated part, he had to cling to the drainpipe securely enough to keep from falling while also working the window open enough that he could get inside. At first, he’d thought he’d just throw the letter in through the window and climb back down, but then he realized it would probably be obvious what he’d done. It was likely the inside door would remain locked from now on, so if he wanted to be able to keep doing this he couldn’t give away his other options. Therefore, he had to go inside.

He managed to get the window open without falling to his death, then he switched his grip to the windowsill and swung over. It took him a little scrambling to pull himself up into the room—obviously he needed to work on his upper body strength if he was going to keep doing stuff like this. The inside of the supervisor’s office was plush and expensive. Roeder wrinkled his nose in disgust. Yes, he had no qualms for what he was doing to this man.

He crossed the room and set the letter on the floor approximately where he figured it would have settled if he’d slid it under the door. He contemplating stealing something, because obviously the supervisor had no need for all the stuff in here and some of it might be worth something if he took it to a pawn shop. Then common sense took over, if he took something and someone noticed it would be obvious he’d been in the room and he was trying to avoid that. Plus, he had a feeling Brekker would not look kindly on petty theft while carrying out his business. With that in mind, he turned he back on the temptation and crawled out the window, making sure to shut it behind him.

“What took you so long?” Brekker asked, when Roeder returned, red-faced and out of breath, almost an hour after he’d left.

“The door leading up to the offices was locked,” Roeder panted. “I had to climb up a drainpipe and crawl in through the office window.”

The look Brekker gave him was so intense, Roeder flinched away. “You can climb?” Brekker asked after a moment.

“I used to love doing it as a kid,” Roeder admitted, not sure why that mattered. “I’m a little out of practice, but apparently not that much.”

“Interesting,” Brekker thought for a moment, gloved fingers drumming on the head of his cane. “Very interesting.” After a few more moments of thought, he abruptly pulled the _kruge_ out of his coat and handed it over. “Do you know where the Kooperom is?” he asked.

Roeder was thrown by the question. “Yes?” he said. It was a restaurant in the Barrel, he knew. He and Franka had gone there with friends once just after they’d met. His father had been furious when he’d found out.

“Come there tomorrow after your shift ends,” Brekker said, pushing himself off the wall and straightening his gloves and hat. “I might have another job for you, depending on how you shape up.”

~~~~

Deciding to go to the Kooperom was not as easy as continuing to deliver the letters had been. While delivering the letters, Roeder could pretend that he was just being an opportunist, taking money when it was offered to him. Going into the heart of the Barrel to meet with one of the most wanted people in Ketterdam was different. If he did that, he would be stepping into undeniable collusion, exactly the kind of thing his father had always warned against.

In the end, however, the promise of money won out and he went. He was pretty late, both because of his own indecisiveness and because he’d gotten lost on the way, and by the time he pushed the door to the restaurant open, he was certain Brekker would be gone.

Turned out he wasn’t gone, though he also wasn’t alone. There was a girl every bit as unexpectedly young as he was with him. They had claimed a booth at the very back of the restaurant, which afforded a good view of the whole restaurant, especially if one person sat on each side of the table, like they were. The girl was saw Roeder, first and murmured something to Brekker, who looked as well. Roeder had never seen the girl in his life and he didn’t even want to think about how she knew who he was.

Roeder started across the restaurant on unsteady legs. A fair number of the other patrons were looking at him. They were all obviously residents of the Barrel and Roeder stood out in his factory clothes. Even more terrifying was how quickly they _stopped_ looking once they realized he was heading towards Brekker’s table.

As Roeder approached, Brekker leaned out of the booth and commandeered a chair from the nearest table—which was empty, perhaps somewhat suspiciously given how busy the restaurant was. He positioned it at the end of the table and motioned for Roeder to sit. This was a relief, because it saved Roeder the dilemma of trying to decide whether to sit next to Brekker or the girl. He sank into the offered seat.

“I’m sorry, I’m late,” he muttered, eyes fixed on the tabletop, looking anywhere else seemed too intimidating. He’d gotten used to the brief interactions he and Brekker had outside of the factory, but this—meeting Brekker in his home turf—was something else entirely. “I got lost.”

“Perhaps I should have sent someone to bring you, then,” Brekker mused. He gave no indication of whether or not he accepted Roeder’s apology, which wasn’t that surprising.

“This is the Wraith,” Brekker said, motioning at the girl sitting on the opposite side of the booth. “Wraith, this is Roeder, factory man.”

The Wraith inclined her head. “Pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Roeder replied. “What’s going to happen tonight?”

“You didn’t tell him why you asked him to come here tonight,” Kaz?” the Wraith asked, giving Brekker a look far more casual than Roeder would have ever dared.

Brekker glared at her, for one moment looking his age, then picked up the coffee cup sitting at his elbow and took a sip. It was only after this that he turned to look at Roeder. “If I’m being completely honest,” he said, “tonight is a test.”

“A-A test?” Roeder stuttered, his guts turning to water.

“Yes, a test,” Brekker said. “I didn’t want to risk you not showing up so I didn’t mention it before.”

Roeder cleared his throat. “What kind of test?” he got out.

“I don’t know how much you upstanding types know about the Dregs, but the Wraith here is my spider,” Brekker took another sip of coffee. He appeared to be drinking it black, something which made Roeder—who would rather go without than drink coffee without milk and sugar—shudder. “That means she can climb and get into spaces most people cannot. She uses these skills to spy for me.”

Slowly, Roeder began to realize what Brekker was thinking. “This has to do with what happened last night with the climbing,” he said.

“It does,” Brekker said, looking levelly at Roeder, like he was daring him to say no. “The Wraith is going to put you through your paces and we’ll see if you can keep up.”

“Why?” Roeder asked. That was the only thing he was capable of saying. “I’m not a gangster.”

Brekker just raised an eyebrow and took another sip of coffee—who drank coffee this late at night, anyway?

“You don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to,” the Wraith said, giving Brekker another look, like she was daring him to deny it. “You can just go home. We won’t stop you.”

Brekker didn’t deny it, so Roeder figured that was probably true. All his common sense was screaming to just get up and leave, but something stopped him. Things had been going alright for his family recently because he was getting the extra money from Brekker. If he walked out now, would Brekker stop showing up with the letters? What would happen when the supervisor eventually gave in and did whatever the letters were demanding? Either way, Roeder would be out of the extra income and his family would be back where they started. If he did this, maybe there would be more jobs later. Perhaps he could keep on like this. Surely his pride was not more valuable than the chance to escape poverty.

“Is there _kruge_ involved in what you want me to do tonight?” he asked.

The Wraith looked mildly horrified, but Brekker snorted in laughter. “Of course,” he said, flashing a wad of purple bills at Roeder before vanishing them back into some pocket of his clothes. “We’re Kerch are we not?”

Well, that made his decision for him. “I’ll do it,” Roeder said.

~~~~

That night was embarrassing. Roeder was out of practice at climbing and running, and even if he hadn’t been the Wraith was miles ahead of him in skill. She moved up buildings and across roofs so effortlessly it was like she was flying. Roeder could see how she’d gotten her nickname. Compared to the Wraith, Roeder was as clumsy as a newborn calf. When they’d returned to the place where Brekker waited for them, Roeder had been red-faced with shame and certain that he’d just blown it. However, Brekker and the Wraith had conferred quietly for a few minutes before Brekker marched over to Roeder, his cane tapping on the cobblestones.

“I’m going to offer you a more permanent job,” he announced.

Roeder’s jaw dropped. “But I basically failed the test,” he stammered.

“What, because you couldn’t keep up with her?” Brekker rolled his eyes a bit dramatically. “I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the Wraith either, even before I broke my leg. You did fine. The Dregs need more people capable of doing spider work, and I think you’re the man for the job.”

This was the first time Brekker had ever referred to the Dregs and the mention of the gang froze Roeder up, reminded him that he was not supposed to be fraternizing with these people.

His uncertainty must have been obvious because Brekker held up a hand to forestall any comment. “This is not an invitation to join the gang. You’ll work on a job-to-job basis just like you’ve been doing for weeks; no commitment required.”

There were a list of things Roeder would later wonder if had been traps baited to catch him, and this was one of them. It was hard to tell with Brekker. Even years later, when Roeder knew Brekker more closely than the vast majority of people, he would never be able to adequately tell when Brekker was being manipulative and when he was just getting outrageously lucky. No matter which it was that night, Brekker got what he wanted: Roeder said yes.

His life as a criminal had officially began.

~~~~

The poor rise with the sun; the merchers sleep in.

Roeder didn’t even remember the first time he’d heard that saying, but it had been a constant one throughout his childhood. Now as an adult, he could confirm that it was actually true. None of the merchers—save for Wylan Van Eck who was the exception to all rules where merchers were concerned—were out and about before ten bells. The Merchant Council tended not to begin any serious business before eleven or noon.

However, just because the merchers could afford the luxury of sleeping in, didn’t mean their underlings could. In fact, their offices were fairly busy starting at dawn, which was exactly what Roeder wanted.

He let himself in through a window, then pulled off his coat and stuffed it into the briefcase he’d brought with him. Under the coat he was wearing a suit of the type an underling of a member of the Merchant Council would wear. He spent a moment straightening it and making sure he looked right, before gathering up the briefcase and letting himself out into the hall.

Espen and Minna always laughed at this method of information gathering. They were still kids and got a thrill out of climbing in through windows in the dead of night and stealing away with precious information, plus they were better spiders than Roeder was and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Roeder was a grown man and a father; he’d quashed his feelings of inadequacy years before. He saw nothing wrong with getting information by letting people see him but not letting them see who he really was. Given he still got the secrets, he saw no problem with the way he did things. The fact that Kaz didn’t seem to mind and had even made him leader of the spiders also cemented the legitimacy of his efforts.

The first few times Roeder had tried this maneuver he’d been sweating with panic, but now he was calmer. In a place like this, there were to many faceless underlings for anyone to know them all. As long as Roeder looked right and didn’t run into anyone who actually worked for the merch he was planning to spy on, no one would question his right to be in the building. He happened to know he wasn’t going to run into Kees Van Dijk’s real secretaries today: he knew each person’s schedule and the man who was supposed to come in this morning would not be in until right before Van Dijk was. Roeder had plenty of time.

The trickiest bit was timing his arrival at the door to Van Dijk’s office at a time when no one was in the hallway, so he could pick the lock on the door. Fortunately, this was a maneuver he’d also gotten a feel for over the years so it went off without a hitch.

Van Dijk’s office was a luxurious thing full of even more comfort than the supervisor’s office Roeder had broken into all those years ago. He wrinkled his nose. No matter how many times he did something like this, the excess wealth was always sickening.

Still, he had a job to do. He crossed to the desk and began picking the locks on the drawers. Lots—most actually—of members of the Merchant Council were snakes, but Van Dijk was an uncommonly slimy snake and also an uncommonly smart one. He wasn’t the kind of merch who left their incriminating papers out in the open thinking their wealth was enough to save them. Roeder knew before he ever entered the room that he would find nothing about the slave trade that was lining Van Dijk’s pockets. He’d also probably find nothing about what Van Dijk was planning to do in retaliation for the Church of Barter stunt, either.

Even though he didn’t think he’d find anything, he checked the desk thoroughly and was unsurprised when he found nothing useful save for an indication of a meeting Van Dijk had had with a few members of the Merchant Council the day before. That was worthy of note because those merchers were the most politically backwards of the whole Merchant Council—which admittedly wasn’t saying much. Van Dijk was politically backwards too, so it wasn’t necessarily unusual that he would be meeting with them, except that with the whole city sitting on a powder keg, any meeting of the ultra-conservative members of the Merchant Council was worthy of note. There was no mention of what the meeting had been about, just a mention of a date and time, so Roeder turned his attention to the desks of Van Dijk’s secretaries.

Roeder had been fortunate enough to meet a fair number of very incompetent secretaries in his day, and it was a very uncommon secretary that was exactly as paranoid as their boss. Therefore, Roeder was pleased but not necessarily shocked when the daily calendar of the secretaries gave him a bit more information.

Actually, he was pleased until he saw what the information was. Then he knew that he needed to get back to the Slat and report as soon as possible.

~~~~

Much had changed in Roeder’s life in the years since he’d agreed to start working for the Dregs. At first, he’d kept the work he was doing a secret from his family, but that eventually became impossible, especially after the Wraith left Ketterdam when Kaz offered him a chance to join the gang and start working for them in a capacity which would allow him to quit at the factory. Franka had slapped him across the face when she’d heard and when he’d tried to apologize for fraternizing with the gangs she’d hit him again.

“I don’t care whether you work for some thieving merch or some thieving gang leader,” she’d told him. “I’m mad you didn’t tell me. I’m not your father.”

With that cleared up they’d settled into their new life. Roeder was officially initiated into the Dregs and took the crow-and-cup tattoo. After a few months, Franka got a job as a bartender in the Crow Club. Kaz Brekker craved information like it was water, so he paid small bonuses to any of the Crow Club’s employees who reported useful information to him. Franka turned out to be so good at it that a year later she was initiated into the Dregs and became the head of the Crow Club’s intelligence network. They had become a family of spies. Granted, Roeder’s father had died refusing to acknowledge that Roeder was his son and his siblings wouldn’t let his nieces and nephews alone with his kids, but they were doing better than they ever had before. They were able to move into a new apartment with decent insulation and a sturdy door. Their kids were able to play in the streets without fear because everyone knew their parents were Dregs and no one messed with Kaz Brekker’s own. Things were good. Roeder almost couldn’t image life if he hadn’t stopped to take that cigarette.

This morning as Roeder made his way back to the Slat via rooftop, the sky was clear and the sun was still rising. He was sure it would get unbearably hot later in the day, but for right now the temperature was bearable. It was a good day for running rooftops, even if you were bearing sensitive information to your boss.

He was almost more familiar with approaching the Slat from the rooftops than he was from street level. Neither he nor Minna and Espen had ever reached the level of flight-like effortlessness and ghost-like invisibility that Inej Ghafa exhibited on a daily business, but that didn’t mean that being on the ground was a comfortable experience.

He entered the Slat through the open window to Kaz’s third floor rooms. This early in the morning, the Barrel boss would be working at his desk up there. He would move to the lower office later, once the Slat started stirring. Roeder had never been able to tell if this was just the way Kaz liked to do things, or if he was trying to fool Anika into thinking he slept more than he actually did.

“Boss,” he said, as he climbed in through the window. “I have something re-” he was cut off by the click of the gun that was suddenly pointed at his face.

It appeared that Kaz Brekker had not been awake and working. In fact, it looked like he’d actually been asleep for once. The Kaz Brekker who was pointing a gun at him was seated on his bed, muzzy-faced and dressed in rumbled clothes. It was the rare person that got to see Kaz Brekker with bleary eyes and messy hair. Roeder had never seen him like this before. It made him look his age, which was an admittedly exhausted and slightly sickly twenty-three, but twenty-three just the same.

“Sorry,” Roeder said, holding up his hands. “I didn’t realize you were asleep.”

Kaz blinked at him for a moment, before recognition seeped into his eyes and he lowered the gun. “Roeder,” he breathed, still sounding half-asleep. He put the safety back on the gun and let it drop into his lap. The blanket he’d been sleeping with was pooled around him and Roeder saw that it was the strange one that Inej had brought back from one of her trips. It looked like a regular navy-blue quilt, but it was filled with rice to make it heavy. Roeder personally thought that sounded suffocating, but Kaz seemed to enjoy it so he’d never commented.

“Do you have something to report?” Kaz asked, running a hand down his face. At some point he had switched from “Brekker” to “Kaz” in Roeder’s head, but whenever it had been the change had been so natural Roeder had a hard time figuring out when it had happened.

“Yeah,” Roeder said. “Van Dijk had a meeting yesterday that I think you’d be very interested in knowing about.”

“Alright,” Kaz said, visibly holding back a yawn. It was odd to see him sleepy, given that he slept so little a fair portion of the Dregs were convinced he didn’t actually need to. “We’ll talk about this in my office downstairs. Give me ten minutes.”

“You could go back to sleep if you want,” Roeder offered. Really, the information he had couldn’t wait, but Kaz looked like he was about to sag back onto his pillows and pass out again.

“No, I’m alright,” Kaz shook his head sharply. “Wait for me downstairs.”

“Alright,” Roeder said, because you couldn’t exactly argue with Kaz Brekker these days—if you ever could—and left the room. He used the door this time.

~~~~

It took Kaz nine minutes to meet Roeder in the downstairs office. He was fully dressed and looked more awake. Since he’d made it downstairs as quickly as he had, Roeder assumed his leg was alright today, because he probably hadn’t had much trouble with the stairs.

“Well?” Kaz asked leaning on the edge of his desk in a half-seated position. The fact that he didn’t immediately sit down confirmed that his leg was good today. Unsurprisingly, getting actual rest helped, though Roeder knew his boss well enough to know that wouldn’t actually change Kaz’s habits any.

“Maxim Vasilyev is here in Ketterdam,” Roeder said, figuring it was best to just break the bad news as quickly as possible. “He arrived yesterday.”

Contrary to the lore surrounding Kaz Brekker, it was possible to startle him. The difference was that he was such a good actor he’d never react to being startled in a way you would recognize. Over the years, if you were very lucky, you could sometimes puzzle out when he was probably startled by comparing what you knew he knew to what you’d told him. This was such a frustratingly imprecise method that most of the time you were better off assuming that nothing surprised him because that was less of a headache. However, every once and awhile you got lucky.

This was one of those times. Kaz had no visible reaction to Roeder’s news, but Roeder knew he hadn’t known to expect Vasilyev in Ketterdam so soon. Last Roeder knew he’d still been chipping away at those letters he was convinced were explaining Vasilyev’s movements.

Kaz didn’t react for a long minute, then he pushed himself off the desk and circled around it. Roeder watched as he drew a ring of keys out of his pocket and unlocked a drawer. He pulled out a folder and set it on the desk, pushing aside a couple other piles of papers and random weapons to make space (Kaz Brekker was many things, but tidy was not one of them).

When he opened the folder, Roeder saw that it was a bunch of letters, probably the ones in question, though Roeder had never seen them before. Espen had been the one who intercepted them and Kaz had kept them hidden ever since. Roeder would have liked to read them. He’d heard they were written about totally inane subject (from Pim, because Espen had had a lapse of professionalism after giving the letters to Kaz and talked about it, probably in petty revenge for not being treated in the way he thought he was owed) but he had personally never seen them. However, he knew better than to try to see things Kaz didn’t want him to, even if those things were probably obsolete now.

Kaz shuffled through the letters for a couple minutes. Roeder could see just enough to tell that they were marked over with Kaz’s spidery handwriting, which was an admission to difficulty that Roeder had never seen from his boss before. Kaz could generally crack codes in his head.

After a moment, Kaz spat out a curse and sat down in his chair. The look he leveled at Roeder was murderous and it made Roeder tense even though he knew he wasn’t in trouble. It was never fun to be around Kaz Brekker when he was pissed off.

“Well, obviously we’re at a distinct disadvantage now that we’ve lost our previous edge,” Kaz said after a moment. Tension was visible in every line of his body and his mouth was a thin line that barely opened when he spoke. It was unsettling to see. “I’m going to need a lot of new information as fast as possible. Do you know where Vasilyev is staying?”

“Yes, with Van Dijk,” Roeder said. “There was notation in a secretary’s planner.”

Kaz muttered something under his breath that sounded like “Thank Ghezen for stupid secretaries” then said aloud, “It’s telling that Vasilyev is staying in Van Dijk’s own home while Baas stays at the Geldrenner. Not necessarily surprising, but telling. What else do you know?”

“When Vasilyev got to Ketterdam yesterday the first thing he and Van Dijk did was meet with Councilman Lauwens and Councilman Reijnders,” Roeder said. “There was no mention of what they talked about.”

“Not fucking surprising,” Kaz grumbled. “Also, not that hard to figure out what they talked about; us probably.” He thought for a minute. “Did you or the other spiders ever figure out what the name of the specialist the Merchant Council voted on bringing in is and just decide not to tell me?”

“No,” Roeder said. “They never mentioned it.” It had struck him as odd at the time, but he hadn’t thought too much about it. He’d too busy worrying about what another Stijn Van Berg fiasco would mean for his family.

“So, they were trying to make sure I didn’t hear about this beforehand,” Kaz said. “I should have realized that was what was happening as soon as none of the half a dozen people who reported to me about this mentioned a name.” he sighed, then leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. “Well, the good news is that we at least know where Vasilyev is staying. I want you to stake out at Van Dijk’s house and watch. If anything happens, I want to know as much as you can get.”

“Right, Boss,” Roeder said. “You can count on me.”

“I always do,” Kaz said.

~~~~

Van Dijk’s house was less a house than a whole complex of increasingly expensive buildings set along the harbor in the richest part of Ketterdam. When you looked at it from above you could tell that the first thing Van Dijk had done when he’d inherited the family company from his father was start building a new house he thought worthy of his grandeur and that he hadn’t stopped since.

This was not the first time Roeder had ever spied on the Van Dijk mansion, but this was the first time he was going in knowing he might learn something interesting. Inej Ghafa had been trying to shut down the slaving business Van Dijk was patron for years with little success, despite Kaz’s best efforts to help her. The problem with Van Dijk was that he was not quite as egotistical as most of the other corrupt merchers in Ketterdam were. He knew that things could go badly for him if the evidence brought against him was damming enough. He also knew that if he slipped up and allowed the inner workings of his slave empire to be known the Wraith of the High Seas—the name people had for Inej Ghafa these days—would end him in an instant. Inej and Kaz had been trying to unravel his web enough to make his continued survival worthless for years, with no success.

Roeder made his way to the main building of Van Dijk’s complex via the rooftops. It wasn’t necessarily easy—Van Dijk did have a number of guard towers stationed to keep an eye out for just such an intrusion—but it was far from the most difficult break-in Roeder had ever preformed. He left himself into an attic room through a window that wasn’t even locked and took a moment to remove his overcoat and straighten out the bits of the Van Dijk servant’s livery he was wearing. Once that was finished he stashed the coat behind a box to come back for and headed down into the mansion.

Supper was already past and Van Dijk’s wife had been sent up to bed. Over the last few years women had been gaining positions of power in the Barrel and as a result it was beginning to become accepted for merchers to take counsel from their wives, though Van Dijk was too old-fashioned for that.

While Roeder padded down the servant’s staircase, he came across a boy Minna’s age coming from the other direction. “Where is the master?” he asked, putting on the faux merch accent he’d learned at his father’s knee years before. Van Dijk’s estate was too big for all the servants to know each other, so as long as he didn’t look or sound like he was from the Barrel, no one would question his presence.

“He’s in the sitting room with his guest,” the boy said. “They’re doing business. We were told to clear the downstairs. On the pain of death.”

So, Van Dijk was the kind of man who killed his servants when they overheard things they weren’t supposed to. Roeder wasn’t really surprised—there were only a few ways to maintain the level of secrecy Van Dijk did and he definitely wasn’t the sort of man who paid his employees well enough to ensure their loyalty—but it was still upsetting.

“Good thing I wasn’t planning to go downstairs, then,” Roeder said with a fake grin.

The boy smiled nervously back. “Good thing,” he said and headed up the stairs again.

Roeder waited until he was sure the boy was gone and the stairway was empty, then headed down to the ground floor. The back hallway the stairway let him out into was dimly lit and utterly silent. Even the kitchen, which Roeder knew from blueprints lay down the hall to his left was quiet. He closed the door behind him and headed to the right towards the rest of the house, careful to keep his steps silent.

Once he got into the part of the house Van Dijk inhabited there was carpeting which made it easier to move quietly. Roeder moved steadily through the halls heading towards the sitting room. As he drew closer he began to hear voices. He could see why Van Dijk had sent all his servants upstairs for this; it appeared he didn’t like to do his plotting quietly.

The sitting room was right next to the dining room with a large open doorway lined with pillars separating them. Roeder cut through the dining room, hunkered down against the wall next to a pillar and pulled out his notebook.

Van Dijk and someone else were talking. It took Roeder a few minutes of listening to realize that there were actually three people in the room. The third had evidently just made a report and was waiting while the others discussed it.

“He doesn’t know you’re here,” Van Dijk was saying, “Something would have happened yesterday if he did.”

“That means next to nothing,” the second person was saying. “If he doesn’t know I’m here now he will before morning. He has a massive intelligence network. His spiders are only the most visible part; every other person in Ketterdam reports to him.”

Van Dijk laughed. It was the laugh of a man who had had few glasses of wine, but Roeder knew from unhappy experience that didn’t necessarily mean Van Dijk was going to let anything slip. “Very funny, Maxim.”

“That’s not that much of an exaggeration,” the man who Roeder presumed was Vasilyev said. “Kaz Brekker’s mythos is built on the back of a number of clearly demonstrable facts. One of them is that he makes it his business to know everything that happens in this city by any means necessary. Fortunately, his knowledge of things which happen outside the city is not anywhere near as flawless. He knows nothing of me, while I know everything of him. That will be his downfall.”

Roeder wasn’t necessarily bothered by any of what Vasilyev had just said. He hadn’t really said anything, to be honest, it was just empty boasting of his superiority, which you heard more than enough of if you spent as much time in the spy business as Roeder had. The only potentially troubling thing Vasilyev had said was his claim to know everything about Kaz but could have also just been empty boasting. Roeder made a face. The worst part of this kind of work was that you were always left sitting around waiting for the people you were spying on to turn the topic to something that was actually useful to you.

“I see your point,” Van Dijk said. “After all, we do have your secret weapon. Hopefully now that you are in the city we will get more reliable reports.”

“I report only to Mr. Vasilyev, not to you, Councilman,” the third person in the room said.

They were the only one who bothered to keep their voice down, but Roeder still almost fell over because the low tone was not enough to disguise the voice. Roeder recognized them. His stomach turned over as he tried to come up with an explanation for this. This could not be happening, but somehow it was.

Unwilling to believe it, he twisted slightly to the side to peek through the crack between the wall and pillar. The person was standing with their back to Roeder, hands clasped in parade rest. Who they were was unmistakable. It was true.

Roeder swore under his breath. That was a mistake and a stupid one Roeder shouldn’t have made, not after so many years as a spy, but the horror of what he’d just realized washed everything else away.

His swear echoed loudly in the room, which had lapsed into silence. All three of the plotters turned in his direction. The person’s—Roeder couldn’t bring himself to think their name—eyes met Roeder’s unerringly, the coldness there was unsettling. It was time to leave.

Roeder hurled himself to his feet and bolted. He didn’t even bother being quiet. At this point silence and stealth would do him no good, only speed would save him and he was going to have to fly: Kaz needed to know what Roeder had just seen.

“Who was that?” he heard Vasilyev demand from behind him.

“One of Brekker’s spiders,” the-person-whose-name-Roeder-couldn’t-think snarled.

“Catch him!” Van Dijk shouted the order. “He’s seen you! He’ll report to Brekker!”

Roeder ran faster. He reached the front entrance and took the front staircase up. Servants poked their heads out of doors and he charged up the stairs using the railing to help pull himself along. He could hear footsteps on the stairs behind him, but didn’t dare look back.

He reached the attic floor and pounded down the hall to the room he’d come in through. He’d left the window in that room open and he was grateful for that foresight because it meant he didn’t have to slow down before hurling himself out into the night air. He left the coat without a thought.

Van Dijk must have had a way to signal his guards of an intruder because a few shots were aimed his way as he raced across the rooftops heading for the complex wall. They weren’t particularly focused shots, however; they appeared to be confused. Roeder focused on the wall. All he had to do was escape the complex and then he could lose his pursuers in Ketterdam’s myriad alleys and rooftops. He had to. He had no other choice. Kaz needed to hear what he had just seen. This changed everything.

He made it to the wall and vaulted over it and into the streets. He stayed on the rooftops. He wasn’t as nimble on the roofs as the other spiders were, but he still preferred having as much high ground as possible at a time like this.

There was no point in fancy maneuvers to share his pursuer. His pursuer knew where he was going and they knew that everything would be over once Roeder got there. The more Roeder tried to shake this person the more time Van Dijk and Vasilyev would have to send _stadwatch_ into the Barrel to head him off. His best course of action was simply to get to the Slat and Kaz as quickly as possible.

The quickest way to the Barrel from Van Dijk’s mansion was across Suicide Bridge. Suicide Bridge had an official name, though no one in Ketterdam remembered what it was—even the merchers called it by its nickname these days. It had been built a few years before as a tribute to the greatness of Ketterdam. It was a very impressive bridge with its handsome stone pillars and sweeping arms etched with ocean patterns. It was also tall, the tallest bridge not only in Ketterdam but in the whole of Kerch. It had been meant to be Ketterdam’s crowning glory, but of course the city had other plans.

Legend had it the first person to throw themselves off the bridge and die had been one of the men who worked on it, though no one was quite sure if that was true because convicts from Hellgate had been used for the construction and there was no record of who had worked on it and what had happened to them. No matter who the first had been, the bridge quickly became popular for suicides. The bridge was tall enough and the water beneath deep enough that it was easy to drown especially if you didn’t know how to swim and most of the citizens of Ketterdam didn’t. Every week a couple desperate souls took their final plunge off the bridge to escape their misery. The fact that the bodies of anyone who threw themselves off Suicide Bridge eventually washed up next to the council chambers was another plus. The gangs used the bridge’s mythos for their own ends as well; throwing bodies into the water to avoid questions.

Roeder had been to Suicide Bridge a couple times before. Once when construction had first finished with Franka and the kids, and then once with Kaz and the other spiders when a job gone wrong had left them with the unpleasant task of faking a minor merchant’s suicide. It felt different tonight, however, now that he was running for his life. The dim lanterns lining its sides felt ominous and it was too big. It felt like something bad was going to happen.

It was theoretically possible to climb over the top of Suicide Bridge, but it wouldn’t be an easy or quick task, so Roeder dropped to the ground as he reached it and pounded across it on street level. The whole bridge was deserted, which was odd. The bridge had recently made it into some Kaelish travel guidebook as one of the top ten most haunted places in Ketterdam so now stupid tourists flocked to it at night convinced it was haunted by some evil spirit with the power to force you to kill yourself. This was the first time Roeder had seen it empty in months.

Had he been in less of a panic, Roeder would have realized something was wrong long, long before he actually did. As it was, he was blinded by horror and fear and the driving need to get back to the Slat and tell Kaz. He didn’t see the trap coming until it was already sprung.

One moment he was pounding down the deserted bridge and the next a wall of _stadwatch_ was rising up in front of him. He skidded to a stop and started to turn around, but another wall of _stadwatch_ were approaching from the other way as well. Too late he realized the _stadwatch_ ’s alarm bells were ringing across the city. Stupid. He’d forgotten the Merchant Council had voted in favor of allowing Vasilyev executive power over the _stadwatch_ until the gang problem was solved. Van Dijk had probably installed a set of the _stadwatch_ ’s warning bells in his complex before Vasilyev had even set foot in the city.

Of course, none of that would matter if Roeder couldn’t get away. He bolted for the side of the bridge. The water was far below and Roeder couldn’t swim, but he did trust his ability to clamber down and cling underneath the bridge. He’d just grabbed hold of the rail and was about to vault up when a member of the _stadwatch_ caught up and grabbed him back the back of the shirt and hurled him down onto the stones. Another kicked him a few times, which had him curling into a ball to protect his ribs. Another swung with his club, beating at Roeder’s arms and head.

“Enough,” a voice said. That sickeningly familiar voice. The _stadwatch_ stopped.

The person came close and snorted, looking contemptuously down at Roeder. “You gave yourself away too early. You barely heard anything. Too bad you heard just enough to get you killed.”

“You’re disgusting,” Roeder said around a swollen tongue and a mouthful of loose teeth. “Kaz will destroy you.”

“I’d like to see him try,” the person said. “Haven’t you heard? I’m on the side of the real monsters now. Kaz Brekker doesn’t stand a prayer.” A cocky smirk. “Finish it,” they told the _stadwatch_ and stepped back.

The _stadwatch_ moved back in with their clubs and boots. They beat at Roeder until he saw stars then hoisted him up and heaved him casually over the side of the bridge.

He was unconscious before he hit the water.

**Author's Note:**

> Stylistic note: I concealed the gender of the traitor to make it more difficult to figure out who it is. You are more than welcome to speculate, but I will neither confirm nor deny your suspicions.


End file.
